April 10, 2008

I thought I had gotten used to the crazy weather here in Texas, but last night was a first for us. At 4 am, Betsy woke us up barking hysterically at the thunder. This isn't that uncommon, since Betsy often barks at the thunder in the middle of the night. We woke up, ready to shush her and go back to sleep, but realized how bad the weather sounded outside. I turned on the TV to see a HUGE line of thunderstorms, stretching from Tulsa all the way down to Waco, with the dark red line, with rotation markers, right over McKinney. Great. They were saying that we were in a tornado warning with reports of 70-80 mph winds, and at that moment the severe weather sirens started sounding. Quickly I grabbed my contacts (so if our house blew away, I wouldn't be blind!), our wedding rings, a change of clothes, and Betsy. We climbed into our under-the-stairs closet, throwing out the vacuum cleaner, and hunkered down. Pretty scary for this California girl...

We sat for about 15 minutes, listening to the rain and the weather channel in the background, watching the radar on Justin's phone. Betsy was an angel, just laying on my lap quietly. I think dogs really must have a sense for things like this--amazing! Thankfully, this was a very fast moving storm and the tornado warning was cancelled by 4:15. We went back to bed after making sure the worst was passed us, but I didn't really sleep too well the rest of the night. I pretty much laid awake with my stomach in knots, thinking about how unprepared we really are if something worse was to happen. Goal for the weekend: create an emergency kit--something we should have done when we first came to Tornado Alley!!

Enjoy the pictures of our middle of the night "oasis"!!

You wouldn't even know we were behind the coats!

Betsy re-enacting her time in the closest

Thankfully, we didn't have any damage, but the news reports all day showed so much damage, and even tornado touch-down reports from all over the area. It really is scary at times to live with this kind of weather, but I know that God is protecting us. As long as I have Justin, Betsy, and our baby, we will be okay!!

2 comments:

You guys are so cute and smart. Once, when Ryan and I were newlyweds, living in those apartments across from ORU, a tornado warning came into effect, and we went outside to see if we could see it! Not that we would have been safe inside those dinky apartments anyway. :-)